Ukraine: Don’t Look to Politicians for Peace

Station of Kyiv Metro, converted into a shelter after Russian invasion of Ukraine (2022). Photo from Kiev City Council (kmr.gov.ua). Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Station of Kyiv Metro, converted into a shelter after Russian invasion of Ukraine (2022). Photo from Kiev City Council (kmr.gov.ua). Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

At this point in my life, I’ve been consistently opposed to war for about twice as long as I spent as a Marine infantryman (with precisely the attitude toward war you would expect). The change was incremental and took a few years, but I consider my decision to march in the streets against the 2003 US invasion of Iraq to have been moral, and my decision to march in formation toward participation in the 1991 Gulf War to have been immoral.

Every international conflict tests that conviction: Will THIS be the one war that makes me reconsider and conclude “hey, THIS war, unlike any other I’ve witnessed, is unavoidable, necessary, and just?”

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is not that war.

Like all other wars in my lifetime (I was born during the US misadventure in Vietnam), this one is a violation of every worthwhile human value, a brawl between overgrown street gangs with delusions of grandeur. It was avoidable, it is unnecessary, and it is unjust.

Where I find myself in disagreement with many who oppose this particular war but have supported others is the notion that there are any  “good guys” to be found among the political decision-makers who brought this conflict upon us.

There’s been quite a bit of harrumphing and table-thumping in UN, EU, and NATO circles over the invasion as a “violation of Ukrainian sovereignty.”

“National sovereignty” is a prettified way of saying “mutual respect between authoritarian gangs’ for each others’ turf claims.” That respect goes right out the window any time one gang wants something and another gang won’t hand it over.

Coming as it does from regimes which have spent the last 25 years militarily violating “Serbian sovereignty,” “Afghan sovereignty,” “Iraqi sovereignty,” “Libyan sovereignty,” “Syrian sovereignty,” etc., the “sovereignty” outrage rings a bit hollow.

Putin’s playing by the same rules they’ve set for themselves. Their problem with him isn’t that he’s breaking the rules. It’s that his goals conflict with their goals. They’re special and entitled, he’s gauche and disreputable. They’ve got a classy country club, and he showed up in spandex shorts and a Slayer t-shirt.

My sympathy, in this conflict as for all others, is reserved for the non-combatants caught up in the gangs’ turf disputes, not for the gangs themselves, or for the gangs’ grandiose “sovereignty” claims.

If you prefer peace and prosperity to war and poverty, none of these people are your friends.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION HISTORY

The Politicians Keep Proving You Can’t Trust Their Money. So Don’t.

CryptoWallet.com Images. Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
CryptoWallet.com Images. Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

It’s a strange time to be a cryptocurrency enthusiast. By any rational calculation, the value of Bitcoin and other alternative money relative to government “fiat” currencies should be hitting unheard of highs right now. Yet Bitcoin seems stuck in a perpetual spiral around the US $40,000 mark and most other cryptocurrencies are similarly flat.

What’s up with that?

Last week, Canada’s self-proclaimed “temporary” dictator, Justin Trudeau, made it clear that established, government-created money kept in established, government-regulated institutions like banks isn’t safe if its owner disagrees with — or is  just  thought to disagree with — even a “liberal democratic” regime.

This week, established, government-regulated investments worldwide are flopping back and forth in price as investors try to figure out whether the politicians are about to take us over the edge into the world’s largest pointless and evil war since 1945, which would certainly entail both further investment turmoil and actions by governments to tax/inflate away, or in some cases just openly freeze or seize, your wealth.

If you think these things don’t affect you, the thing you’re doing that you think is thinking isn’t.

If you’re not moving your disposable cash into cryptocurrency or metals — which also seem to be running relatively flat pricing — you’re pretty much just begging Joe Biden, Vladimir Putin, and a host of lesser gangsters, to rob you blind.

One caveat, which the Trudeau coup made explicit: Holding cryptocurrency doesn’t protect you if you keep it in exchanges with “custodial” wallets that can be frozen on orders from politicians.

To the extent that there are “old sayings” in a financial milieu that’s just entering its teens, one of the biggest is: “Not your keys, not your crypto.” If you keep your Bitcoin or other assets in the “custodial wallets” of government-regulated exchanges, they’re not safe.

The good news is that there are a number of “non-custodial” wallets available for download. They’re easy to find (Google is your friend).

These wallets don’t store your cryptographic keys; those keys are always in your hands. Your “account” can’t be “frozen” or “seized” — the app is just an interface for sending and receiving, not an actual storage location. Even if the app stops functioning, you can use your keys to reconstitute your wallet elsewhere, or just keep it on paper until you want to move cryptocurrency out of it.

The politicians keep proving you can’t trust their money, or their intentions. So don’t.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION HISTORY

Ukraine: US “Diplomacy” is the Problem. Can it Become the Solution?

NATO member states by year of accession. By MK-CH1. Public Domain.
NATO member states by year of accession. By MK-CH1. Public Domain.

After weeks of unsuccessfully attempting to either bully Russia’s Vladimir Putin into submission or bait him into war, US president Joe Biden may finally be looking for a face-saving exit from of the Ukraine “crisis” of his own making.

Reuters reports that Biden, at the urging of French president Emmanuel Macron, is willing “in principle” to hold a summit with Putin. “We are always ready for diplomacy,” says White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki.

Unfortunately, it’s US “diplomacy” which brought the US, Russia, Ukraine, and NATO to the current standoff.

As the Warsaw Pact disintegrated and the Soviet Union collapsed, US encouragement for those events included pledges that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization wouldn’t take advantage of the situation to expand eastward. Since then, NATO has inexorably pushed in that direction, nearly doubling the number of member states. Thanks, US “diplomacy.”

Things began coming to a head with the US-sponsored coup in Ukraine that replaced its “Russia-friendly” regime with a “US/Europe-friendly” regime in 2014, courtesy of Barack Obama. Thanks, US “diplomacy.”

Then in 2019, the US withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which forbade the US to place missiles within surprise strike distance of Russia, and Russia to place similar missiles within surprise strike distance of NATO. The US followed up by placing exactly such missiles in Poland, courtesy of Donald Trump. Some “diplomacy.”

Then the US went into overdrive (courtesy of Trump and Biden) against the opening of a pipeline (Nord Stream 2) which would have supplied Russian natural gas to Germany.  The pipeline would have been a force for peace insofar as Russia likes to sell natural gas (at a fraction of prices the US can offer), and Germans like to not freeze to death. To flip and paraphrase an old maxim, when goods are crossing borders, armies usually aren’t.

Putin finally drew a red line at NATO membership for Ukraine specifically, and against the US definition of “diplomacy” — “do exactly as we demand, without question or objection, and we may consider deigning to allow you to kiss our feet for a little while before kicking you in the face again” — generally.

Bullies really, really, really hate to be told “no,” and tend to go into full bluster and posture mode at the first hint of that happening, which explains the Ukraine “crisis.”

Unfortunately for THIS bully, Putin remains seemingly un-frightened. Even as the US and its poodles met in Munich, of all places, to issue more threats, he declined to play the role of Neville Chamberlain.

So now Joe says he may be ready to talk. Whether the willingness is real, or just another exercise in fake “diplomacy,” remains to be seen. As does whether Putin will give Biden a graceful/deniable way out of this mess, or insist on rubbing his nose in the thick layer of filth US “diplomacy” has previously deposited on the ground.

With two nuclear powers at loggerheads, the stakes are far too high for further attempts to disguise US hubris and megalomania as “diplomacy.”

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION HISTORY